


Epilogue - Pocket-Sized

by Donda



Series: The Adventures of Tiny!Max [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Birbs, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Tiny!Max
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7641466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donda/pseuds/Donda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiny!Max finds himself the caretaker of something he was not exactly prepared for...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epilogue - Pocket-Sized

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dellanir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dellanir/gifts).



> A congratulatory gift for Dellanir!  
> With thanks to SingleWhiteCatLady for help with ideas and inspiration.

In the weeks and months following Max’s decision to stay small, he often would come with Furiosa, riding on her shoulder to join her in the repair bays or on watch duty, or up in the gardens at the top of the Citadel. Sometimes, though, he would want a day to have time to himself, and she’d leave him in their room. He had his plastic car, and if he wanted to traverse any stairs or cross to a different tower, he could usually find someone to give him a hand. She’d return before dinner to ask if he wanted to join, and she’d either find him there, or she’d go on without him and hope that he hadn’t gotten himself stepped on.  
  
“The bird’s a she,” Max said as Furiosa entered one evening. He motioned over to the cage that sat on the far corner of the workbench as he used most of his weight to tip over a bottle of gun oil to drip some onto a small rag. They had gotten the white bird only yesterday.  
  
“And how would you know that?” Furiosa started to remove her prosthetic, undoing the belts with slow but practiced movements.  
  
“Laid an egg.” He pulled the bottle back upright and took the rag over to the gun he was cleaning. Furiosa ventured over to the cage and leaned over to look. The bird sat nestled in her food dish, evidently using it as a makeshift nest.  
  
“Just one egg?” She couldn’t see it, and didn’t want to scare the dove away from her incubation duties just to look.  
  
“Mhm.”  
  
“Well, a second white bird wouldn’t be bad.”  
  
Max wasn’t sure if he was going to change his mind and want to make use of the white feathers from the bird, but it was nice knowing the option was there, and it was never a bad idea to have a backup option. He nodded absently.   
  
Fifteen days later, Furiosa returned late at night, tired from a long watch shift, only to find Max missing. She was instantly alert. He rarely disappeared at night, and if he did it was usually only to go for short walks through the halls if he couldn’t sleep. And if he couldn’t sleep, it probably meant something was bothering him, or the nightmares had gotten particularly bad tonight.  
  
“Max?” She glanced around the room one more time, then turned back toward the door to see if she could find him.  
  
“Here,” she heard a quiet voice over by her workbench.   
  
She scanned over the bench, didn’t see him, scanned again, and finally found him sitting in the bottom of the bird cage. The dove was perched in the top corner, as far away from him as she could get, looking a little offended by his presence.  
  
“She’s not feeding it,” he grumbled as Furiosa approached to look into the cage. “Been peeping all day.” He sounded exasperated, and she guessed he was regretting his decision to stay behind today.  
  
Instead of an egg in the little nest they had given the bird, Furiosa saw scattered bits of shell and one of the ugliest creatures she had ever laid eyes on. It was mostly pink, with sparse yellowish tufts that looked like fur more than feathers, big black eyes that showed through its skin, and an awkwardly-shaped beak. It perked up as she leaned over the cage, its mouth opening wide as it let out surprisingly loud cries and flapped its stubby little wings. Max sighed and stood up, lifting his own hose-cap bowl to pour some murky liquid into its mouth.  
  
“What is that?”  
  
Max looked down at the bowl. “Mushed mealworms in water,” he said, sounding dismayed. “It kept choking on solid food.” He nodded toward the bowl of seeds and worms they had been feeding the dove. “This was the only way to shut it up.”  
  
“Will it stay quiet for the night?” Furiosa stifled a yawn.  
  
“Don’t know. Think I’ve fed it enough.”  
  
“Well you don’t need to stay in there. We can find someone in the morning who can take care of it.” Furiosa slid the door of the cage up and reached in to lift Max out, then carefully retrieved the nest with the baby bird. It didn’t really need to be in there, either. It certainly wasn’t going anywhere on its own. Its head popped up again as she moved it, and the peeping resumed. Max lifted his bowl as she set the nest down, and tipped some more food into its mouth.  
  
Furiosa offered her hand to give Max a ride across the room as the baby settled down again, but he shook his head.  
  
“I’ll feed it the rest of this first,” he said, indicating the bowl. “Maybe it’ll stay quiet then.”  
  
Furiosa nodded with another yawn, went to lay down on her bed, and was soon asleep. She had meant to stay up until Max had finished feeding the baby bird, but exhaustion from a long day took her quickly. Max was capable of getting himself around anyway. That’s what they had made the rope ladders for.  
  
When she awoke in the morning, however, he wasn’t in his usual spot beside the pillow, and she sat up groggily, looking around the room. She checked the floor before she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, then trudged over to the workbench. Maybe he had left early. At least the bird hadn’t woken her up.  
  
She stopped in front of the workbench suddenly, staring down at the little nest sitting in the center of it. There was Max, curled up in the nest around the baby bird, both fast asleep. She pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh, and leaned down to look more closely. The bird was curled up against his chest, its head resting on his shoulder, his arm laying loosely over the bird’s back. She debated briefly if she should wake Max up or just let the two of them sleep. They did look awfully comfortable, and trying to wake Max up still resulted in a bad reaction more often than not. She didn’t want him waking up swinging, with the baby bird in his arms.  
  
She sat down quietly, a smile still on her face, but the old wooden bench creaked faintly, and Max awoke with a start.  
  
“Shh, Max, it’s fine.”  
  
He looked up at her blearily, noticed the smirk still on her face, then looked down at the baby bird in front of him. He sat up quickly, dumping the bird’s head off his shoulder. It immediately popped its head back up and started peeping hungrily.  
  
“It was cold,” he grunted over the peeping, scratching at the back of his head. “It was shivering bad. Doesn’t have its mother to, ah…” He motioned vaguely toward the cage with the mother bird. Furiosa’s smile grew. Max glared at her challengingly.  
  
“No, it’s good you did that,” she assured him. “It might have died without.”  
  
Max huffed, climbed out of the nest and stretched. The peeping continued. “Gimme some water and a couple of those worms.”   
  
Furiosa filled the small bowl with water and dropped a couple mealworms into it before handing it back to Max. He crushed and mixed the baby’s food with his hand, removed the shells, then tipped the mixture slowly into the bird’s mouth, bit by bit.   
  
Furiosa reached for her prosthetic and started to strap it on. “We should grab some food ourselves. We can ask around and see if anybody can raise a baby bird.”  
  
Max looked down at the bird silently as it settled down, apparently happy with its meal for the time being. “No, I’ll uh… I’ll stay here. Take care of it until someone else can take it.”  
  
Furiosa stifled another smile. “If that’s what you want, sure.” She finished strapping her arm on, gave Max one last look, her brows raised questioningly to ask if he was sure (he was), then left him to it.  
  
When she returned to drop some food off for him, he had the bird wrapped in a bit of cloth and the nest pulled across the workbench to the patch of sun coming in from the window. It looked to be asleep. He looked up from the small object he was fiddling with and put his finger to his lips as she entered, and she set down the food carefully before heading back out without a word.  
  
She didn’t know if she really trusted any of the War Boys to take care of the bird. They meant well, but their hands were trained to work with machinery and weapons, not tiny baby animals. There were many pups who were learning to care and grow and heal, who might have been overjoyed to have a young bird in their care, but the younger ones were an excitable group, and she didn’t know if that was the best idea. The older ones, like the War Boys, had responsibilities of their own.  
  
“Ask Cheedo. You know she loves small cute things,” Toast suggested with a smirk when she stopped to talk to Furiosa later that day.  
  
“It’s not cute.” Furiosa hadn’t even thought to ask the Sisters. They all had duties of their own that kept them busy throughout the day.  
  
“You never know, she might still take it.” Toast gave a wave as she headed off to meet her newest group of trainees.  
  
It was Marin who finally agreed to take it. “Sure, I’ve raised a couple birds in my time,” she said with a smile.  
  
Furiosa asked Marin to meet her at her room when she had time that evening to pick up the bird, but when Furiosa arrived late that afternoon to see how Max was handling what was probably most of a day’s worth of insistent peeping, she stopped in her tracks again. He was sitting on the edge of the nest, quietly petting the bird’s half-bald head as it rested it in his lap.  
  
It was getting really hard not to just grin at him now. “Are you sure you want to give it up?” she teased him.  
  
Max looked down at it, silent for a long enough span that she realized he was actually considering it. “’S kinda cute.” He smiled faintly.  
  
Furiosa looked at him disbelievingly. “Pretty sure it’s not.”  
  
By the next day, they had strung an electric light into Furiosa’s room and set up a little box for the bird where it could stay warm and safe. Marin had been understanding when Furiosa had quietly turned her away, saying Max had decided to keep the bird himself. She left him with a bit of advice and an offer to help if he needed it, and gave Furiosa an amused smile on her way out.  
  
Max stayed with the bird almost constantly for the first few days. The first couple were demanding, and Furiosa wondered if Max would give up and pass the bird on to Marin after all, but the more time he spent with it, the more it endeared itself to him. Even as it chirped and wiggled and flapped for food insistently, she had definitely never seen him smile this often, as much as he tried to hide it. The electric light kept the featherless thing warm, but it demanded food often, and on occasion it would decide that feeding time needed to happen in the middle of the night.  
  
“Max, your bird,” Furiosa groaned, rolling over after its cries for food woke her.   
  
“Mmf. Sorry.” Max got up groggily and she felt him cross the pillow above her head to get to his ladder. It was a minute or two before the peeping finally stopped, and Furiosa was asleep again by the time Max made it back to his spot on the bed.  
  
He rarely left the room for long in the following days, and the one time he came to join Furiosa and the Sisters for dinner, he insisted on bringing the bird with him.  
  
Furiosa set the little box with Max and the bird down on the table, and the Sisters peered inside curiously, having only heard of Max’s new companion.  
  
“You were right, it’s ugly as hell.” Toast grimaced at the bird as it looked up at them with oversized black eyes. Max crossed his arms, looking offended.  
  
“Are you sure it’s going to be white?” Dag looked closely for any signs of white feathers, but all it had were furry yellow tufts.  
  
“Marin says it will change color,” Furiosa said, lifting Max out of the box. “No telling what color yet, but those are just its baby feathers.”  
  
By the fifth day it wasn’t quite so insistent, and it was only a day or two after that that Max finally started to leave it alone for any span of time. But not always. Furiosa thought by then that nothing he would do for that bird would surprise her anymore. That was, until he showed up in the repair bays one day with the ugly little creature sitting awkwardly in the passenger seat of his car.  
  
It had been growing quickly, and by now the baby was starting to grow proper feathers on its wings. They were a dark grey, and Max had been a little disappointed at first, but he wasn’t about to stop caring for the bird now. It depended on him and he was irrevocably attached.  
  
“Okay, how did you get him down from the workbench?” Furiosa looked down at the car, surprised. The creature was about half Max’s size now, and his only way to and from the top of the workbench was his rope ladder.  
  
“Made a sling,” he responded, getting out and going around to open the passenger side door and haul the bird out of its seat. He set it down and it rocked unsteadily on its oversized feet. Furiosa imagined him carefully climbing down the ladder with the baby bird swaddled in a sling on his back, and she smiled to herself.  
  
“And how is Pigeon doing?” She had thought for the first few days that he was just calling it _pigeon_ because that’s what it was. She hadn’t realized that was as close to an actual name as he was going to give it. The sisters had tried to get him to rename it, offering progressively more unusual names, but he had refused each and insisted that it was fine.  
  
Max looked down at the bird as it peered up at the world above it. “Seems good. Didn’t know if he would do a car ride, but he seemed to like it.”  
  
Furiosa leaned down and picked the little creature up to see more closely. It gaped at her as she held it up in her palm. “He’s getting big. If you want to keep driving him around, I think we’re going to have to move him down to the floor for you.”  
  
“Hm.”  
  
“Won’t be long before he’ll be able to carry you around. You sure you don’t want a saddle for this one?”  
  
Max grunted again.  
  
She set his car with Pigeon in the back of it out of the way on a nearby bench as he helped her out for the day. A collection of nuts and bolts had gotten knocked onto the floor recently, and Max was the perfect size to find all the ones that had bounced under cars and supply cabinets and machinery, and to sort the hardware into separate boxes.  
  
By the time the bird was twelve days old, feathers were starting to come in all across its body, and it showed itself to be a mottled grey and white. It was also getting too big for Max to lift. He brought it with him to dinner one last time when it was fourteen days old, and decided after that that it probably wasn’t going to fit in the front seat of his car much longer. He opened the door to coax it out, and it almost spilled out onto the floor.  
  
“I think it’s getting uglier,” Toast commented.  
  
“What? No, it’s starting to look like a real bird!” Cheedo said defensively.  
  
“It’s not growing feathers on its head!” Toast retorted.  
  
Max patted the scruffy fluff of yellow on its head after he got it out of the car. It did look a little silly with its body filling out and its head still partly bald, but he didn’t mind. Furiosa handed him his bowl (now his again after he had gotten a new one for Pigeon) and he sat back against his bird’s side, leaning into the soft feathers as he ate.  
  
When Pigeon was finally old enough to learn to fly, Max wasn’t sure if he was supposed to teach it, and if he was, how he was supposed to do that.  
  
“Just feed him less and put some food where he has to fly to get it. It’s about time you started weaning him anyway,” Marin told him when he asked her for advice.  
  
Max tried it, but Pigeon just begged harder for food from Max, and refused to fly on its own. He tried to give it gentle shoves toward the edge of the workbench to encourage it to fly, but it outweighed him by now, and sat solidly in place. He tried tethering its mother’s leg and letting her fly around the room, and Pigeon stretched its wings, but folded them again and stayed seated comfortably on the workbench.   
  
Furiosa walked in that evening to find one bird flying around and Max actively trying to shove the other off the edge. She sighed and shook her head.  
  
“Okay, you need a break.” She picked Max up by his jacket and pushed Pigeon back from the edge. “It’s been two days of this. He’ll fly when he’s ready.”  
  
Max started to protest, but then let her place him on her shoulder and put Pigeon back in its nest box.  
  
“Besides, if he never learns to fly, then you never have to put him in a cage,” Furiosa suggested as she caught the white bird by her tether and eased her back into her cage.  
  
Max considered it. That wouldn’t be so bad, he supposed.  
  
The next couple of days, Max opted to leave Pigeon to its own devices for a while. Part of him wanted to see his baby bird learn to fly, but part of him also wanted to never have to put it in a cage. He decided he would let Pigeon do whatever it wanted to do, but focused instead on weaning it off of his care.  
  
“No.” Max pushed Pigeon away as it approached him one day, begging for food. “Your food’s over there.” He pointed to the bowl sitting by the nest box. Pigeon came back, cooing at Max hopefully.   
  
“No. You have to learn to feed yourself.” Max shoved the bird over to the bowl and pointed again. Pigeon peered at Max.  
  
“It’s there. Eat your food.” Max walked back toward the map he had been studying, trying to make it obvious to Pigeon that he was ignoring it. Finally Pigeon seemed to notice the food in front of it, and after a moment of eyeing it curiously, it pecked at the bowl. Max smiled to himself. He turned his attention back to the map, but something moved at the edge of his vision, and his head snapped back up. Pigeon stood frozen as a large snake slithered through the rough window cut into the rock above the workbench. Its tongue flicked in and out as it zeroed in on the young bird. Max glanced around, then snatched up the ink pen laying by the map and hurried to put himself between the snake and his bird as the reptile slid down onto the table. It gathered its long body and coiled back on itself, its tongue still flicking. Max backed up, pushing Pigeon backward with his body and wielding the pen in front of him.  
  
Pigeon cooed quietly and the snake sat coiled, tasting the air and sizing up its prey. Max wasn’t sure anymore if its intended meal was his bird or himself, but he wasn’t about to let Pigeon become easy prey. Suddenly the snake struck, but instead of a mouthful of its meal, it only got a mouthful of pen. The snake hissed and recoiled to strike again. Pigeon let out a panicked noise and with a flurry of motion that nearly knocked Max onto his face, took to the air. Max looked over his shoulder in shock as his bird flew off, a little ill-practiced, but well enough to get away. He almost sighed in exasperation. It wasn’t that it _couldn’t_ fly, but apparently just that it hadn’t _wanted_ to. The snake lunged again, and Max almost didn’t see it in time. He started to dive out of the way, and the side of the snake’s head grazed him, knocking him down to the table. Max scrambled to his feet and ran, narrowly avoiding another strike.   
  
Pigeon continued to flutter around the room as Max made it to his ladder and climbed quickly half way down before he let himself drop, landing on the floor with a grunt. He eyed the door and the small gap underneath it that he knew he could squeeze through, but he couldn’t leave Pigeon on its own. He ran toward where the bird was fluttering in the corner, only to watch Pigeon fly off in a different direction. He looked up at the table as the snake’s head appeared over the edge. It judged the distance to the floor, then slowly started lowing its body over the edge. It was then that Pigeon’s panicked flight led it toward the window, and Max watched in horror as the bird disappeared through it. He stood frozen to the spot, hoping to see Pigeon come back in, but knowing that it wouldn’t.   
  
When he turned his attention back toward the snake, it had made it to the floor and sat between him and the door, tasting the air again. He could give it a wide enough berth to still get to the door, but if it made a move at the same time he did, he wasn’t sure he would have enough time to get under the door before it got to him. He was not willing to get that close to something that wanted to eat him. He backed up as it started moving slowly toward him, and he looked around for a plan B. His window to escape to the ladder on the bed closed just as he thought of it, and he found himself backing into the corner in the path of the approaching snake. If he let himself be cornered there would be no escape; he’d be snake food. He dashed to the right, and the snake struck out as his movement. Max skidded to a stop to avoid it, then continued running as soon as the snake had pulled back its head. He followed along the wall, under the work bench and to the door, glancing over his shoulder to see if the snake was following. It only sat, rotating its head and tasting the air, but he didn’t stop running.  
  
When he got to the door, he was nearly knocked over as it suddenly swung open, and he dove back with a yell as Furiosa stepped inside.   
  
She stopped short, her foot hovering above the ground, her arms bracing on the door frame to catch herself. “Max? What are you doing?” She put her foot down carefully and crouched down to look at him.  
  
“Snake!” was all he said as he leapt up and ran toward her nearest foot. Furiosa glanced in the room, found the offending creature, and carefully stepped toward it, holding a hand down to signal Max to stay back. It coiled as she approached, and struck out as she got yet closer, but there wasn’t much it could do against her metal arm, and after a moment she straightened up with it writhing in her hand, trying to twist its head in her grip to bite.  
  
“Are you okay? How did this get in here?”  
  
Max nodded in answer to her first question, then croaked out a weak “window,” pointing toward the opening in the wall.   
  
She approached it, leaning over the workbench to peer out the window as if she might be able to see how the snake had managed that, but she stopped suddenly and backed up, looking over the workbench. “Wait. Where’s Pigeon?” She looked at Max with widening eyes, then lifted the snake, checking its length for a bird-sized lump.  
  
“Flew away,” Max muttered, pointing half-heartedly to the window again. Furiosa leaned back toward the window and looked out. There was no sign of Pigeon.  
  
“Max, I’m so sorry…” She knew how attached he had become, and knew there was no sense sugar-coating it with hopefulness. The bird could be anywhere by now.  
  
Max grunted and looked at the ground, turning the matter over in his head. Maybe Pigeon would be able to survive on its own out there, maybe not. He’d probably never know either way. “Was stupid,” he muttered, “getting attached.” He turned abruptly toward the door. “It’s dinner time, right?”  
  
Furiosa watched his retreating back disbelievingly, but the slouch of his shoulders gave him away. He was playing tougher than he was, and just didn’t want to show that it got to him. She looked at the snake still clasped in her hand, now wrapped around her arm, then followed after Max, stopping to pick him up with her free hand.  
  
“Well, I think snake just got added to the menu tonight,” she said, trying to cheer him up a little and for his sake going along with his dismissal of the previous subject. She watched him for his response, but all he did was give a half-hearted nod.  
  
When they met up with Capable, Cheedo, Dag and Toast, he hid his disappointment well as they ate, but Furiosa could still sense despondency from him, and he said nothing of Pigeon the entire time. In fact he said very little about anything. A shake of Furiosa’s head when Capable started to ask about his bird was enough to stop further questions from arising. She would tell them later, but if Max didn’t want to talk about it, there was no point digging into a fresh wound.  
  
He said nothing as she carried him back to their room after the meal, and the silence became uncomfortable.  
  
“He’ll probably stay around here,” Furiosa tried, looking down at Max. “There’s plenty of food and water to attract him. We can spread the word around to the workers in the gardens to watch for him. Maybe someone can catch him for us.”  
  
Max shrugged without looking up at her. He didn’t really believe it. She closed her mouth and didn’t push it any further.  
  
Max went to bed without saying anything, slept fitfully, and woke up without saying anything. Furiosa wished she could do something, but knew the best thing to do was to leave him alone. He’d open up again when he was ready.   
  
She pulled on her prosthetic arm in preparation for the day as Max scrubbed at his face and hair with a damp scrap of cloth, when a flutter and coo caught their attention. Furiosa turned toward the window and Max looked up, dropping the cloth in his hands. There was Pigeon, pecking hungrily at the food dish still sitting on the workbench. Furiosa’s brows rose and she looked down at Max, who stood with his mouth partially agape. He burst into motion suddenly, as if he couldn’t cross the room fast enough. He started climbing down from the small table where the water basin was kept, and Furiosa plucked him off the ladder, crossed the room in a few strides, and placed him on the workbench. Without missing a beat, Max approached his bird, reaching out with a cupped hand. Pigeon turned toward him, pecked at his hand, then pulled its head back and peered at it, only now noticing it lacked the food it was expecting to get. Max cracked a little smile and picked up a grain from the bowl, placing it in his palm and holding it out to Pigeon again. Pigeon snatched it up.  
  
“Dumb bird,” he said, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around its neck, his face disappearing into its feathers. Pigeon cooed questioningly.  
  
Furiosa offered later on to find a cage for Pigeon to live in, but Max just shook his head. “I think he might be a homing pigeon,” he said, looking at the bird thoughtfully.  
  
“What does that mean?”  
  
“He’ll always come back home.”


End file.
